I have often done this before: install ubuntu on a usb and use it to boot from it from different machines (two similar dell laptops, similar components etc.). I know, normally you use a live system for full portability and that the ubuntu installer configures hardware etc. when installing on a specific setup, but I have never had problems with it. (I even ran it successfully on completely different hardware without problems).

Today it thought, I want to try it on a colleagues machine, because he thinks it is kind of broken (windows randomly shows blue screen when working with it). It is a new machine however.
So I used a usb that has never been attached to any system but mine before, everything ran fine. Then after I booted the usb on the lattop of my colleague and everything ran fine, I booted it again on my computer: result: does not boot anymore. I thought: okay maybe a file system error, ran btrfsck, but it did not show anything of interest.
I ended up setting up the usb from scratch.

After that I set up another usb with a fresh copy of ubuntu. I successfully installed some software, powered the system off and bootet from the colleagues machine. Everything worked. Then I tried to install some software there, but apt complained, that debconf is missing. apt-get install -f did not work either, so basically the whole package management was broken in a irreparable state.

This cannot be coincidence, can it?

So my question is: Could faulty hardware (other than the storage device itself) screw with the root filesystem so that it breaks?